Tag: mockingbird

While the rapid expansion of human cities has been detrimental for most animals, some have found ways of exploiting these brave new worlds and learned to live with their prolific inhabitants. The Northern mockingbird is one such species. It’s very common in cities all over America’s east coast, where it frequently spends time around humans. But Douglas Levey from the University of Florida has found that its interactions with us are more complex than anyone would have guessed.

The mockingbird has the remarkable ability to tell the difference between individual humans, regardless of the clothes they wear. After less than a minute, they can tell one person from another and adjust their responses according to the threat they pose to its nest. This ability suggests that these birds are both intelligent and very flexible in their behaviour – two traits that must surely stand them in good stead in the urban jungle.

It obviously benefits an animal to be able to distinguish between threatening and harmless species, but discriminating between individuals of the same species is a much more difficult task – just think about how difficult you would find it to tell the difference between two mockingbirds by eye.

Levey worked with 24 pairs of mockingbirds that had taken up residence on the university’s campus. Hundreds of people walk within five metres of their nests every day and elicit absolutely no reaction. To simulate a greater threat, Levey asked one of his colleagues to approach the nests of birds with fresh clutches, and touch their rim for 15 seconds. When faced with such intrusion, mockingbirds will typically react by rallying from the nest, making alarm calls and diving aggressively at the trespasser.